Your Thoughts on the Future of Live?
I’m doing some thinking around the future of “Xbox Live”. I put Xbox Live in quotes only because Live will be stretching beyond the console this year with the release of Live on Windows, and we’re looking at a future where multiple devices will all be able to connect into the same service. My question to you is what big features would you want to see out of Live in the future?
Imagine a world in which your account can work with different devices, each with different capabilities. Some might have a keyboard, some might not. Some might connect to your TV, some might be mobile and fit in your pocket. Some might be built from the ground up for gaming, some might have gaming as an ancillary function. The common thread across all of these devices is internet connectivity and Live, with your single login (Gamertag), your single friends list, and the ability communicate and share with those friends and the community.
What do you want to see? Think big here – ideally, think about what you want to see over a five-year period, and how your ideas evolve over that time. What’s the crawl step for your idea? The walk? The run?
It’s important to say that I’m just one of many people who will be working on this, and I will not be able to commit to anything being done, or even confirm that many ideas might even be considered. On top of that, you should assume that any ideas discussed publicly here are just that – public. Microsoft may use them in product ideas, and for that matter, anyone might use them. If you have some ideas that you want to keep private because you think you might do something with them yourself one day, you should not post them here.
That said, if you’re ok with the above, we’d love to hear your thoughts… and remember, think big, think long-term, and think stages to get there. That’s how we can get this sort of thing done.
[Edit: you'd think I'd know how to spell "publicly" by now. <sigh> Fixed.]
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i think that they should allow any type of video file to be played on the 360. they should also allow you to customize your gamercard(e.x. add music and others things you would do on a web page.)
What I’d like from Live – a ticker bar. Nothing fancy, just a little bar of scrolling text at the bottom of the screen, much like the news notification applications people install on their PCs, or the news updates on PGR3. But this would appear on all Live devices.
There are lots of things I might want in it. Maybe I want to know when my friends are online, in the same way you get the pop-up notifications on 360 now, but less intrusively. Maybe I want to know what game they’re playing. Maybe I want to know when they unlock achievements.
Maybe I want to receive notifications of when people are available on my IM. Maybe I want to know when I receive email, and maybe I want the first couple of lines in my ticker bar as well, or the option to use the guide button to pull up the message. Maybe I want SMS (text message) notifications.
Maybe I want the latest headlines from BBC News as they’re published. Maybe I want weather updates. Maybe I want to know about game releases, or new demos available for download. Maybe I want updates on the status of online auctions I’m watching.
What I definitely want is to be able to control what I get. I don’t want adverts pushed to me. I want to be able to put any web or other online content I like in there (don’t force everyone else to adopt new standards – interface!). I don’t want to have to move my email to Hotmail, or my messaging to MSN. I want to be able to control, for each piece of content, its priority and how often it gets redisplayed.
That would be pretty cool.
One of the biggest flaws with Live is reliance of Peer to Peer for hosting games. A player online experience is dependent on the hosts Upload speed. On top of that people are restricted by the service offered in their area. So why not give the user and clans the ability to buy control of a dedicated server that can host all the live games.
There needs to be a way to use EVERYTHING you purchased using Live offline, regardless as to what happens to your console. I have not had to replace my 360 yet, but if I ever do, I will not be buying another. Instead, it will go in the garbage bin, UNLESS Microsoft creates a way for everyone with no access to high-speed internet to be able to use the content they pay for, offline.
Customizing your 360 backround menus would be the best
i want to see fully customizable controls a standard for all games. or at the very least, choice of southpaw thumbsticks, southpaw buttons (x y a b can be swapped with directions on the control pad, no?).
then, on live, let us post user created custom configs along with a peer rating system.
then, if we can’t stand the standard controls (like the ones in lost planet) we can all go look up the highest rated config and download it, and it will show up as one of the choices in the controls setup along with the standard controls.
if, for example, someone were to create controls that try to unify, say, all FPS games as much as possible, and with southpaw thumbsticks, it could start a following of left-handed players who add that person’s gamertag as a favorite and keep coming back for his configs every a new game comes out.
I would like to see Xbox Live with an enhanced chat feature like IMVU Beyond Instant Messaging (imvu.com). I have not joined yet, but from what I can see it seems pretty cool- a lot like the SIMS but better in many ways. I love the customizable 3D character option. Just think of how much this could boost the Xbox Live community even more. I mean who really chats on Xbox Live with the current form of chatting besides during multiplayer? It would be so cool to meet other Live members the same way as IMVU does it. Maybe it should be offered as an introduction to all Live members, and perhaps a full-sized package for all Xbox Live Gold members. If you haven’t seen IMVU, then the Xbox Live Team should check it out. Give this to us. And call it AVATARIA.
Not only should there be a mandatory party system, it should work across games. So a group of friends can be playing halo together and the party leader can designate a different game. It would then tell all the other party members insert <GAME> like when you get an invite.
I hope this isn’t too lat or a duplicate of what someone else said, but one thing I would like to see is the ability to have user content. What I mean by user content is Xbox Live users creating things and administering them to other people to try or buy.
I remember hearing a Xbox 360 conference before it came out talking about how users would be able to create custom ingame skateboards or shirts, and selling them via the Live marketplace. I don’t think that happened unless I missed something.
It would be great for the upcoming Guitar Hero game for the 360. Imagine that someone creates a killer riff combination for your favorite song, then Xbox Live allowing you to buy it from him for like 10 Marketplace points or something. It would encourage people to use their creative sides and give others a chance to see it.
Just a thought…
One more thing, ditch the DMZ required hosting thing. The main cause of many of the problems on Live is due to the ‘hidden’ requirement of your Console being set as a DMZ. At the very least, make port forwarding an option and explicitly state that you’ll have to adjust some settings on your network.
Sorry if this has been posted already.
How about you open the API for the "Toast" pop-up Alerts so that programs on the windows side could send alerts to the 360 side. On the more restrictive side, maybe you could tie in some services through xbox.com, and allow people to opt in to receive new sets of alert.
New mail, message board post alerts etc…
1. Web Browser
2. A Windows Live Messenger
3. Xbox Live should be avilable in More Countrys
Besides that Xbox Live is the best online gaming experince I ever used!
Someone has probably mentioned this already, but I’ll say it again. You should be able to categorize your friends on Live (sort of like MSN). It would be nice to be able to put your clanmates into one category, other friends into another and then those people you just added before a clanmatch into yet another category.
I suggest to put internet Browser. Also Microsoft can use the MSN messenger in the xbox.
The last one is to put the name of the game in the "play game" line in every main menu. You never know witch game is inside.
I’d like to be able to filter my friends list by the game I am playing. For example, if I’m playing Ghost Recon, I would like to be able to only see my Friends who are online AND own Ghost Recon.
And, as a subrequest, I’d like to be able to remove games from my list so I don’t have games that I’ve sold or rented still listed as a game I have.
I’d like to be able to watch nearly any sort of movie format through the network, even if I had to pay a fee for video format lisences, say U$20,00 a year for all formats wouldn’t harm anyone.
Right now the 360 is not a complete solution for media center. This lack of support for other formats is really annoying…
And I wouldn’t like to migrate to Windows Vista just to have a browser… If possible, please make one available for us.
thank you.
Instead of fully written out profiles, instead of Tags, like you would put words or phrases that have to do with you. This way in matchmaking it would try to find people with the same tags as me like if I put "Rareware fan", and someone else had it on MBU currently playin a game, I would be paired with them.
Abosolute non negotiable control over ads.
IPTV providers should not be able to control how many ads get skipped. Make a platform that makes that impossible.
We should be able to turn off all ads permanently.
Even were we accept ads we should be able to turn them off instantly with a single click and with out having to search for an x. We should haven’t to even know what the ad is before we click it off- we should be given a warning even where we have accepted ads in some capacity to close it before knowing what it is.
If we choose to see ads we should be able to choose to only be shown an ad once ever and some sort of contract violation clause if an ad is slightly modified and shown again when we have clicked the one time only option.
We should have to option to make the ad provider pay us if they want to run the ad and we have enabled ads.
That rate should be based on this formula: You will pay the end user. The amount paid (regardless of who the end users is) will be roughly equal to (((2x indexed GDP))/population )/(waking seconds in a year.) The 2x figure takes into account the GDP that goes un reported but is acknowledged by economists. That means a one minute ad would cost about 25 cents today and that would have to be paid to each end user. * So that is roughly an indexed quarter per minute.
We need a browser and a KBM because that brings in a concrete model that set up the expectation that the out moded model of fraud based advertising will not continue- it affirms that the PC and the source engine have relegated this form of barrel scraping to a bygone era.
Give us more Local map targeted information as a web offshoot.
This will be easy to do if you do a wireless communicator mouse.
MS should never ever be involved with selling people or enabling people to be sold stuff that they end up neither needing nor wanting stuff that generates regret. Nor should they ever be involved with theft of attention and time to perpetrate such scams. In any involvement with AT&T MS must lead through non aggreement with anything that runs counter.
AT&T as a firm is essentially obsolete and based on an obsolete business model. Its not clear how it could change. But Vonage like compromises aren’t going to hold. In fact where ever possible MS should push technologies like Mesh that make firms like AT&Ts situation even worse- that is in the public interest. If MS is like a Toyota that thinks of the public first it will do well. If it functions like a GM that wants to keep a grand scam alive (oil distribution network through hydrogen) it will die.
Web Browser and email program please.
Oh and here in the UK we still have not seen the launch of the Video/TV/Movie marketplace. Pull up your socks and release that here please. I hate being left behind.
How about dedicated Microsoft Servers to host ranked games so nobody has host powers.
not to mention dedicated servers could probably support larger numbers of players
I would like to have a feature that we can download videos and demo games directly from Xbox Live to USB drives (attached to the 360 console) such that lots of the 360 console’s hard disk space can be saved.
Thanks for your kind attention.
a way to tell who is who on your friends list easier. this could be done simply bye adding a small space to put in maybe where you met the player to jog your memory. Having a ton of friends can make it difficult to tell whos who sometimes.
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=623992&st=60&p=9064394&#entry9064394
According to Bethesda, we can’t have Oblivion DLC on a disc because of a console limitation. Fix that issue first, Microsoft!
Make it free like Sony and Nintendo, and then get rid of all the racist *** children. The service is wonderful, the community is horrid. If I can’t play with my real live friends I turn the damn thing off.
1440×900 support
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Fixing this issue:
http://forums.xbox.com/1159815/ShowPost.aspx
would greatly improve not only XboxLive, but also the 360 in general.
HEy there good work on xbox live. I have one suggestion that i believe is really scalable. Its called xbox live calendar. The big hook about this is that 1- microsoft can post about any event like game releases or announcements and have players with a push of a button set a reminder. 2- set up play dates with your friends ( set a date and time in the cal then just send invites to your friends) 3- join tournaments set up by anyone and everyone (again microsoft can set up there own or just let individual players setup there own and join with one button push). 4- Be able to track tourneys on the comp, xbox, or cell ( see updated scores and eventually maybe even stream tourneys) 5- be able to share you cal with buddies on live 6- obviously have it on the cell pc and xbox so you always have access. Thanks for all your work good luck with it all!!
This is not a Live-specific request; More of a dashboard wish, and if you could pass it along I’d appreciate it.
What I have been wanting badly is the ability to use the music player from the blade when playing a DVD movie. We can play music during games, but not during DVD playback, and this seems silly to me.
I have several DVDs that I would like to have playing for the visuals while I listen to my favorite music. Right now, the music player is disabled while a movie is playing.
This is an easy thing to fix, I’d assume. Why not implement it?
I would really like the use of Album Cover images in the Music area while scanning through songs. I know it may be hard to do through mp3, so I would reccomend doing it with only WMA files. Not only would this be a good feature, it would be a good catalyst for WMA adoption, which is always good for Microsoft.
I don’t expect this to be done through the Guide, just through the Music Blade. Like, while looking through the Computer tab of Music, with the Album specification. Just show the Album name with a anippet square about the size of 3 of the present cells used now high. Or, change the viewing to block format, like Pictures in this case, and have the name of the album underneath it. This could be easily changed back and forth through the Console options blade.
I would at least want some little bugs fixed, so that it would be at least perfected now. Like when you log on and the little notifier suddenly gets real small. More importantly, the ability to set a profile to just login right away, instead of a small delay, and then log online. That way it is seemless, and your theme doesn’t have to change.
Also, I would love larger codec support, even if i had to pay a "small" fee to stream divx xvid, mpeg, and h.264 from my computer. It is just too hard to convert to wmv, and I would use the streaming feature all the time. This is my most wanted feature.
I would also want to connect my computer and Xbox and maybe even a portable device like the Zune, to share all my XBLA games, my account, and everything seemlessly. Thanks for all the hard work on Xbox!
For real I can’t read this whole page but people with doubts about a web browser on the 360 don’t have them, because think of this "Has the Wii or the PS3 or the PSP ever got a virus from web browsing", not that i’ve heard of. A virus cannot get into a system unless microsoft has left holes open for a virus to get into the hard drive and as far as I know there is none except for bookmarking and also if microsoft does put a web browser in there and send updates for it like wm player and flash player and java as well, but the players are not accessible to modify except by MS so that no viruses can climb in. Imagine being able to go on the web and listen to like Sirius radion on the web or watch game trailers and play Flash games, I tell ya it would make you have little use for your computer except pc games : ) So ya I want a web browser and a better Music system for the Guide blade, make it so that if your in a private chat you have options to invite up to 3 other people into the same chat and also when you do voice messages, it goes back into the private chat that you were in.
Also I would like the msn messenger list combined with my friends list so I can chat with my messenger friends list. But guys what is Xbox Live Everywhere/Anywhere, isn’t that where cell phones are linked with your gamertag and msn is combined with live as well as windows games. But ya I want that already.
I would like to see a web browser, so when im waiting for a game to start like Gears of War of Vegas, i can go on a website and then when it starts, it just goes off the screen like the home button.
more than one person to talk to over xbox live on one channel…not having to switch channels to talk to someone else
Simply two things to help alleviate my borderline OCD
1. Grant the ability to at least clear out the Live Arcade trial games. Makes too much clutter and there’s really no reason to make DEMOS count as full games with achievements.
2. A sort function for the download history. Speaks for itself.
FREE!!! Thats what everyone is asking from M$
xbox is the ONLY system you have to pay to play online so why dont they join the rest if the world and make it FREE!!!
Great to see your team are taking on active feedback unlike some of your competitors.
Think the following would be cool:
1. RSS feeds. Would be great to be able to subscribe to feeds and keep up-to-date with news without having to switch my PC on.
2. Podcasts.
3. Calendar. Interactive calendar for Xbox Live Gold members so they see what’s happening in terms of online gaming, announcements, etc.
4. Web browser.
Thanks for listening.
hi
I am from Germany, at first you do a great job.
sorry for my bad english.
My Ideas:
Videos on demand service for Germany too
more news by xboxlive about new games, xbox360, reports
do you have a contactadress from your german coworker?
@Ozymandias
I would really like to see a basic web browser. Nothing fancy, just something for simple browsing. For instance: you could use it to look up a FAQ if you’re stuck in a game.
How about being able to listen to voice messages, viewing pictures plus read Halo 2 (XBox in General) messages. I’ve been stressing this for months.
And how about letting Silver use the messaging center and not just Gold. Its pretty stupid how only Gold can send messages through xbox.com only.
And how about a new look for the dull looking dashboard. I’ve seen websites that look better. And the dashboard is pretty darn slow.
And in some games like Far Cry, the glide menu in SLOW. Fix that. Speed things up with that dashboard. Make glide move faster. Everything must be FAST.
And dammit! Have support for all video formats including AVI. No one uses WMV anymore. That’s so stone age now, man.
And change friends list limit to 555 (or 500) or atleast 250. People like to have hundreds oif friends, ask AOL, that buddy list can hold over 500.
Gracias.
Here are some more:
-Enhaced status message i.e. "looking for coop" or "Be back at 9:00′
-Ability to manage presences. I may be signed into multiple devices/platforms simultaneously and I’d like to dynamically (and quickly) set my "primary" where I recieve messages/invites.
-Button configs that get saved between games: ideally to your online profile that can be moved between platforms (i.e. 360 controller on a PC)
MAKE MULTIPLAYER FREE!!
Stop raping our wallet every chance u get!
The $250 Wii has an internet browser. Why can’t a microsoft product do this? Give XBL internet explorer.
1. Group Chat – We had it on V1 (Original Xbox) But for some reason we’ve lost this option on the 360.
(Many of us like to meet up before or after clan matches/races etc. on the dash board and or other events to make plans for upcoming events and is extremly foolish to have to switch to multiple channels to talk to other friends/channels to do this when we had this exact option on the previous version..)
2. Larger Friends List – Please, please increase our friends list and recently played players list..
3. Bio/Personal Info – Would be nice to have an area where other members could click where we could enter "more" information if we so decided to enter more information about ourselves or our clans/websites/etc. other then our "Motto" area.
4. Browser – Not necessarily a suggestion rather then a must have to keep up with the "Jones’" at this point, especially when you can even get a browser for the DS now..
5. SMS Messaging – Finish what was started with the "Windows Live Messenger" Integration and the "Live Anywhere" Integration and also release the "Qwerty" Keyboard Controller and/or Add on as well please..
6. XM/Sirius Satellite Radio – We know you’ve been working hard on this, is it more or less a matter of when it’s gonna be released ??
7. Link it alltogether now – With the upcoming release of Vista, Live Anywhere, Crossbow, IPTV, and of course lets not forget about the Zune the possibilites really are endless when you also include the already avail. HD-DVD player. So if we had the included browser capabilites, SMS capabilites, a personal bio capability with included http link capabilities the controller with included Qwerty keyboard attachment, well now there would be no need for that pesky keyboard on your lap to send or receive SMS msgs, or type in links while browsing web pages etc while watching that great HD content via your IPTV or Live Marketplace or even via your HD-DVD player or even through your pc via Vista.. Then to take it even further you can start communicating further and playing games and apps mobile with your phones via Windows Mobile (Crossbow) and soon enough doing even more with your Zune when that’s announced.. (Games anyone?)
As it looks like my first post got spam filtered, I’ll break into multiple:
-I’d like to see guild/group management features. The ability to see where multiple people are together as a group. The ability to chat as a large group and move from game to game (as a group). Ability to hold group video and voice meetings. Group messages. More than 100 friends. A single friend entry that represents an entire group.
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